Mormonism and Me: The Shocking Truth About the Self-Made Poster Boy for Married Gay Mormondom

When Another Other emailed me after reading my essays on being gay, married, and Mormon to tell me how much he identified with what I said, I felt obligated to quickly dispell any false ideas about my religious beliefs the essays written two years previous might have given him. Oddly enough, "coming out" about my religious status is even more unnerving for me than coming out about my sexual orientation ever was. I have this notion that people will not like me if I tell them how I really feel. Thankfully, AO was quick to point out how silly it was of me to think that we couldn't be friends just because I don't fully subscribe to the same dogma he does. I hope you'll do the same.

See, the shocking truth about the self-made poster boy of married gay Mormondom is that I'm not really Mormon. Well, I am, but I'm not. Like everything else about me, it's complicated.

I've talked about my religious turmoil here before, but it's been a while and I think people tend to take the fact that I'm still going to church regularly and appearing in newspaper articles whose headlines profess my supposed religious affiliation as an indication that whatever doubts I had have passed and I am once again as Mormon as they come (and then, you know, there are a couple people who haven't read every blog post I've ever written--may God have mercy on your poor souls). I'm not entirely bothered by this assumption, but at the same time it's not entirely true.

I have questioned several tenets of the LDS church since I was in high school. Among the things I've questioned are the historical veracity of the Book of Mormon, the exclusive claim to prophetic revelation, and the mixed message you-can-pray-and- receive-your-own-personal-revelation- but-if-it-contradicts- official-church-doctrine- then-it's-wrong philosophy, but always central to my doubts about the church was the contradiction between what the church taught about homosexuality and what my instincts told me. At each major decision point--when I chose to go to BYU instead of a non-church university, when I decided to go on a mission, each of the 600+ times I decided to stay on my mission, when I decided to get married--I prayed and received what I interpreted to be confirmation that I should put the doubts aside and proceed according to plans. I believe that some of these confirmations came from God, and I'm not opposed to the idea that all of them came from him, but really who knows? Basing life decisions on feelings and faith is the only way to go sometimes, but it leaves a lot of room for second-guessing later.

Almost two years ago now, all these doubts came to a head when I decided that I was unhappy with my life and surely this gay, Mormon, and married thing just wasn't meant to work. I saw before me two choices: stay in the church and stay married to Foxy J, or leave both of them. The problem was that I simply couldn't convince myself that leaving my wife was the right thing to do, but the more I thought and prayed about it, the more I felt the church wasn't everything it claims to be. Sorting out what I wanted from what I believed from what I thought I should want or believe was nearly impossible. When a simple question about the truth of a religious dogma carries with it not only the question of church attendance but also your marriage, your family, and your entire life, it's suddenly not a simple question at all (if it ever was). Eventually what I had to do was decide what I wanted in regards to my marriage, regardless of what the LDS church said I should or shouldn't do, in order to take the weight off the religious question. So that's what I did.

Without my marriage hanging in the balance, the answers to the religious question came more clearly. I found that all the doubts I had about the church were genuine concerns, that they were not merely an excuse to justify something else I wanted. I asked to be released from my callings because I didn't believe some of the things I was expected to teach others. I decided to continue attending the LDS church in support of my wife's beliefs, and found that many things that had bothered me about the church no longer did. I could disagree privately and let others believe what they chose to, and it was okay. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was being completely honest with myself and others.

I believe in God. I don't know that he exists, but I have seen enough evidences of his existence and his love for me to feel it would be foolish to say he's an imaginary construct invented to make us feel better about ourselves. I suspect that God is more complicated than any single religion can grasp, but I believe most religions, as long as they're trying to make people better and happier and discouraging them from hurting each other, are good. I don't know what God thinks about homosexuality in general, and I don't care because I know that for me, the right thing to do is to be faithful to my wife.

I'm not opposed to being called Mormon or even calling myself Mormon because I have been Mormon all my life, and I do attend the Mormon church every Sunday and really, just like "gay," I can make the label mean whatever I want it to. Words are words--they have only the meaning we attach to them. Even though I don't believe the LDS church is the one true church, I still think and act in very Mormony ways. I learned how to approach God through the LDS church, and I see no reason to change that. When I pray I pray like a Mormon. When I interpret answers to prayers I use the methods taught to me in Mormon Sunday school. When I think of God I envision a very Mormon God, much like you'd find in any painting of Joseph Smith's first vision. I don't know that the God I'm imagining looks much like the one who actually exists, but I'm not sure it matters.

In the end, there's only one God even if Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Mormons and Pseudo-Mormons pray to him in different ways and call him different names. I don't think he cares whether I call myself Mormon and gay or Branch Davidian and quadrisexual; I imagine he's much more concerned with what I do and who I am. So here's hoping that whatever I call myself, I'll be a good husband, father, brother, friend, yadda yadda yadda, and a decent person.

And I hope we can still be friends.